Sunday, 30 October 2016

PUMPKINS WITH PURPOSE.

How are you this evening? Are you feeling well? Has it been
a good weekend? Did you get to see any friends or family? Launch your Halloween
celebrations? Crunch any autumn leaves?

However you’ve spent your weekend, I hope it’s been a really
good one, readers. Can you believe it’s almost the end of October?? And the
clocks have turned for winter?? It's crazy how time flies!

As I write, we’re two days off November 2016 (which sounds
very wintry to say!) and the clocks have gone back an hour so it’s seven in the
evening and it’s been dark for hours now. Crazy! Titanic is on TV (*weeps*) and
my house is filled with cobwebs as I threw a Halloween party last night!!

I really got into Halloween this year, readers, and I’ve had
fun this week party prepping. It’s been quite the project – every lunchtime at
work I’ve gone out and picked up something new – booze, shot glasses, jelly,
gummy eyeballs, candles… was determined to be the hostess with the mostest!

Finally, it all came together last night. Me n CoolyColey
carved some (sort of) frightful pumpkins to light party goers way and I decked
out the livingroom with spooky decorations! The guests arrived in some super
impressive costumes and we launched a triple assault of Halloween drinking
games.

Pierre and Frankie greeting the guests

The house all trimmed up for Halloween

Though I may have put more thought into the house décor than
my actually costume (a sign of aging!), and ended up going out as a sort of
skeleton/mime/panda, it was great to see everyone. Any excuse for a get
together with the friends!

How’s your Halloween, readers? Did you do any partying yourselves this weekend? Or are you saving all the fun for the 31st tomorrow? Whatever you’ve been up to and whatever you may have planned for tomorrow, I hope you get to see your friends and have a grand old spooky time!

Your guess is as good as mine

Some cracking costumes from the girls though!

Once you’re all partied out, readers, my Recipe of the Week
this week is here to provide you with the ultimate solution to your
what-to-do-with-the-pumpkin dilemma! If you find Hungover You thinking ‘maybe I’ll
just chuck it’… don’t do it!!! That’s one giant vegetable you’ve purchased
right there, readers, what a shame it would be to throw it away.

Let’s not be wasteful, readers. I say save that pumpkin til
you’ve recovered from the jelly shots and you’re well enough to stand at length.
And then do something great with it! Maybe scroll back to my last blog post and
check out the recipe I shared for maple roast roots? Pumpkin can definitely be
roasted! Get it in the oven!

Don't let your pumpkin go to waste!

Or think of all the things you can buy in the supermarket
that come in a pumpkin flavour. There’s pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin
ravioli… why not have a crack at making one of these at home? I ate out this
week at an Italian and tried a pumpkin risotto from the specials menu… blew my
mind! Who know you could put pumpkin in a risotto?? But so good.

Or, if you’re heading into the office this week, why not
turn your pumpkin into a delicious soup that you can heat up for your lunch
some days? This is what I’ve done! Rolling out a ChefBeHere classic recipe for Pumpkin
Soup… which you can find HERE.

This is a really simple recipe, readers, you just need to
make sure you have onions and stock cubes in and nip out to the shop for some double
cream. There’s very little skill required and it’s quite fun! If you didn’t get
all your aggression out, when you were carving the pumpkin earlier this week, well
now you get to go to town and hack it into tiny little pieces.

A very straightforward recipe

Go for it, readers! I think homemade soup is in a whole other league to soup from the shop. You know there’s nothing weird in there, and it’s so flavoursome and tasty! You’ll be hard pressed to find a pumpkin in a week or two, once the supermarkets kick them back out, so make the most of your pumpkin… and I hope some of you have a go at transforming it into Pumpkin Soup.

Meanwhile, readers, once I’m done weeping over Jack and Rose
I think I might run a bubble bath and have an early night. That’s enough
excitement for one weekend. Wishing you all a lovely, calm week ahead… and some
scrumptious pumpkin recipes in your belly.